


pink lemonade

by xxaura



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: 707 | Luciel Choi's Real Name, Everyone is suffering, F/F, F/M, M/M, Swearing, Yoosung Kim's Route, catch me with that happy ending tho, exploring yoosung's good ending and mc and seven's guilt, mystic messenger spoilers, panic attacks and dissociation, starts off yoosung/mc, there's not gonna be bad feelings in the end tho i want them to still be buds!!, warning: u probably end up breaking up w yoosung shdhsfhf
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 21:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15760470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxaura/pseuds/xxaura
Summary: in which mc pays her debt in kisses and movie dates with a boy she can't deserve, jaehee's questions her motives, seven's an inch past falling apart, and yoosung's finally found a purpose and played a hero but still nothing's going rightora study in guilt and self destruction after yoosung's route





	pink lemonade

**Author's Note:**

> you're too selfish to ruin this without enjoying it first.

You don't know what hurts worse - seeing him in pain or knowing it's your fault.

 

Yoosung squirms and winces as the brights lights of the movie burn holes into his eyes. You notice the way his hands fidget and the tight line his lips form when it gets too loud. You can only imagine the pounding migraine he must be having from this. Honestly, what was he thinking watching a horror movie with an eye injury like this?

 

You know you shouldn't have agreed to this, but after foolishly revealing an interest in horror movies he’d become determined to prove his bravery to you like this.  
You would have found it sweet if the circumstances were different. You know he should still be resting, not antagonizing his wound. But with how excited he looked… you’d turned your back on your better judgment. You only hope he hadn't lied to you about taking his pain meds.

 

You’re checking on him more than the movie and you hope he doesn’t notice. You squeeze his hand in an attempt to comfort him and wonder if you should pretend to feel sick just to get him out of here. The only thing holding you back is a crushing fear of disappointing him.  
  
    Why won’t he just admit that his pain is acting up again? He didn’t have to push himself like this all the time. He winces and you loosen your grip on his fingers. Your cheeks flush. You were hurting him... _yet again_.

 

You’ve been doing dumb, little things all day all because of the one, _big_ oopsie glaring you in the face - which was also because of you.

 

Like earlier when you’d gone for a walk. You’d talked about random things which probably either bored him or convinced him you were a weirdo (though if his best friend was Seven, maybe you could get away with being a freak). Or when you’d practically scalded him in your coffee because of your stupid, shaking hands. And he’d comforted _you_.

 _‘Excuse me, you are the one hurt here.’_ you wanted to say, but instead bit your tongue  
  
    It felt like you were crazy sometimes. Every since the bomb your emotions had been out of wack, but things had only gotten worse from there. When the party had finally come along you’d never felt so relieved and happy. But you were also unbelievably worried and so, _so_ guilty.

 

It was just a little bit of coffee and yet you were fighting tears. You were just glad he didn't see. And thankful for how he could quiet your mind just by scrunching up his nose and laughing. You laughed along, but with that feeling eating away at you, you couldn't help but feel like a liar.

 

Your nails dig into your palms, fists sitting on your sides, probably white by now. No one else can make you such a _mess_ . Some days he’s as natural as the air. And on the others you choke. This probably isn’t a good thing.  
    He deserves something healthy. But you're not naive enough to believe everything will turn out fine just because you hope it will.

 

You owe him so much and you don't know how you're supposed to amend for ruining the rest of his life. The more you thought about it, the more suffocating it felt. But you aren't supposed to be thinking about this. It already keeps you up staring at your bedroom wall all night. Right now you're watching a movie. _Just watch the movie, that’s the least you can do._

 

 

> “Are you okay?”

  
    And now you’re caught dissociating and having to answer a question. ~~You’ve already~~ yeeted ~~yourself into the astral plane.~~ This is great. He's leaning closer than you thought he was.

There he’s going again, treating you like _you're_ the one carrying the burden. You pretend not to hear him over the rising instrumentals. It’s not hard. You hope he’ll forget his question - you just need enough time in your head to calm down and come up with a plan without self destructing.

You're not lucky enough for that.

  
    You don’t know why it all feels so much bigger right now, but you’ll think about that later. Right now you just need to get away from the overwhelming scent of popcorn (How are you supposed to _think_ with all that butter? It- it's so loud), the annoying sounds from the people around you, and most definitely _him_.

 

~~_You say you’re scared of burning while you light another match._ ~~

  
    “I have to go,” You stand up awkwardly, your volume all wrong and you have to step past him because he was sitting on the outside. You wish you had an invisibility button. You’re walking too fast for these stupid heels and you hear him behind you and suddenly everyone around you screams and _why did you have to be at horror movie right now?_

 

You couldn’t have gotten out of the theater soon enough. You lean against the wall outside, a hand running through your hair as you look up, away from humming lights. The sun is hiding behind the clouds or the buildings somewhere and you envy it.

 

The sky is a dusty lavender, which seems out of place. You’re thankful.  
If it were orange, you’d compare it to fire and be reminded of how tonight was probably going to end up with you burning everything away in a poorly timed meltdown. Or if it was a dark and star-less, light polluted sky, you’d imagine falling into it.  
  
    But it’s calm instead, reminding you of an old concept you aren’t paying enough attention to remember. You use it to distract yourself from the cars whizzing by an the people talking obnoxiously down the sidewalk.

 

Somehow you feel like he’s still next to you.

 

You want to laugh in pity of yourself. Even after running away, you can’t find silence. Your impulsiveness could have at least had the decency to make you hide in the bathroom. This is why the city sucked. You take off the shoes, letting your bare, aching feet rest on the cement.

  
    The door opens again and you see him rushing out and bumping into someone on his left side. After hastily apologizing he calls your name. You look down and edge back on your naked feet, praying he doesn’t notice you and yet at the same time hoping he does. If he doesn’t, you might start crying and catch a ride home. Or leave the country. But probably just collapse on the stree and sob like the disaster you are.

But if he finds you, maybe your autopilot will kick in and you’ll pull yourself together, repressing this for lucky future you.

 

The universe does a coin toss. You glance backward and he looks lost and confused and _ouch, your heart._ Suddenly, he looks your way and he lights up. (If the sky was dark, there’d be a star now after all.)

 

“Oh, haha, hi,” you subconsciously tuck a piece of hair behind your ear while looking away. “I just had to go to the bathroom,” It comes out sounding more like a question.

“Out-outside?” he smiles shakily but doesn’t laugh.  
How can you save this? “I got a little lost,” Your lying is making it worse. What was your plan, again? Run home? And then when he starts to calls you? Eat your phone?

  
    “Um, did your shoes get lost too?”  
You’re confused for a second but then your cheeks warm. “Oh, my feet,” You hop a little while putting them back on. “-were hurting a bit,” You still can't seem to focus but you try to swallow your panic with a promise to yell into a pillow or something later.  
    “I might just be crazy, but...” he starts, a sincere worry in his tone (and his eyes too, probably, if you could make yourself look at them.). “You seem… nervous? And that's alright! I'm, um, I'm nervous too.”

Your breath catches. A part of you wants to tell him everything - communicate (put more guilts and problems on a college kid going through too much already! Great!) like a normal couple. You don’t know what stops you, your pride or your debt.

 

He continues with a more confident tone, “...But you should know that whatever is wrong, you can tell me no matter what - I don't care if I’m being cheesy, okay?”

You force a laugh. Shit, did it sound fake? “Trust me, I'm fine... I'm more worried about you. That movie was terrifying.” Was it? You couldn't remember anything past the first twenty minutes and you could only put so much of the blame on your attention span. There's an uneasy silence for a few seconds. Police lights momentarily envelop you both in their glow and you almost wish they had stopped to take you away.

 

“Mm, maybe,” he says, distracted. He’s looking at you, genuinely searching your face for some sort of clue as to what is happening in your brain. He has this expression - this tenderness - like he’s at as much of a loss as you are. Like you could run away right now and leave only your shoes behind. Like you were something precious.

You're selfish and you almost let him speak - maybe to insist you're not okay and hug you and somehow make everything bad disappear. _Almost_. (You’re sick of being selfish.)

 

~~_You cry tears of gasoline_ _over your candle and don’t expect it to end like this?_~~

 

“Do you still want to watch the movie?” you ask.

“Do you?”

Your answer is immediate.“No,”

“Phew,” he does the nervous smile again.

“So, we still have dinner left, right?” (You cringe internally, it sounds like you’re counting down. Hopefully he didn’t notice.) Autopilot is working a bit. It’s just a date. You’ve done this kind of thing before. Don’t overthink.

 

He smiles but it’s honest, like the ones you heard in his morning calls waking you up until you were already awake specifically to catch them. This boy owns so many smiles and he wears them like hats and hands them out like cookies. (Your smile belongs to him too, on your better days.)

“So, where do you want to go? I’d love to cook for you instead but first I probably need some time to practice...a few...decades,”  
  
    You were tempted to disagree on behalf of his cooking skills, but you saw a possible future where he actually _did_ end up cooking for you. That situation would paint you both in his apartment- in his kitchen!- and _oh boy_ that would be a lot more stressful than eating out right now.

Suddenly, he squeezes his eyes shut and hands fly up but freeze midway, and you can see the sharp pain shoot through his head like a taser. Your heart falls through your stomach. What- what can you do? But then he puts them down and takes a breath like nothing happened.

 

You’re whiplashed. “Are you okay?” (He’s already asked you this and you paid him with a lie).  
    “Yeah! Just, y’know, minor headache. It’s fine!” He waves a hand, shaking the notion off. (You don’t deserve the truth anyway.)

“You sure?” How big of a deal do you make out of this?

“Yup!” he flashes a thumbs-up.  
You decide the best thing to do right now was try and be stable for him. If it happened again, so help you, you would drag him back home yourself.

  
    “Um, okay. Let me know if it gets at all worse. We can always reschedule,” You want to reschedule already. He obviously doesn’t.

“Okay, but don’t worry, it’s already getting better, heh,” It’s weird to see him lying.  
You take a hand out of your pockets to point down the street at the first neon-eatery-sign you saw, which just happened to be Subway.

  
    So this is how you end up inside an almost empty Subway in panic-attack-central with a killer table. _Eat fresh!_

 

→  ☆ ←

 

 

You sit at a table against a wall. Your knee is bouncing beneath it and yours face looks philosophical, but if you're being honest, the table’s just in an interesting spot. Your life feels so cliche and distant that you are almost certain there should be a window to your left. At this point you were at least half-sure you were a character in a sad drama, and that’s why it made no sense to not sit in a window-seat. But no. It's just a wall, obstructing your sky. Hmm.

 

Yoosung sits down too quickly across you and smacks his hip into the misplaced and now apparently violent table.

“Ahhh,” he cries quietly, snapping you out of your...whatever this is.

“Are you okay?!” you whisper-shout, stilling your leg. (It's weird. You really feel like someone else said that. You wonder what

“I- I have been attacked,”

This won't do. You swat the table lightly. “Bad table,”  
You both giggle, though yours feels odd actually escaping your throat. For some reason, it’s wrong to let go. You justify the nagging feeling by the fact that he seems to be feeling better in the underwhelming Subway.  


“Oh- here’s your sandwich,” he slides it across.

You gingerly unwrap it but don't touch it. You weren't actually hungry, but you didn’t want to tempt fate after knowing what happens around any R.F.A member when you let yourself go malnourished.

 

“So,” you start, dragging your finger along the grains of the table. You're determined not to let this get awkward or quiet just because you’re... not feeling well. “I’m, er, sorry again about the movie, ha,” Yes, go you. Great topic!

 

“Nooo, don't worry! I was getting pretty scared too, I can't blame you for running away. You should have told me though! You didn’t have to make up weird excuses,”

“Oh! ...Would you have protected me?” you tease him, bringing a bite of the sandwich to your lips. For a second you’re surprised again. You definitely _are_ on autopilot now. Also, this sub tastes funny. Maybe it’s just because you haven’t had western food in a while.

He turns a shade of pink and looks away, and you notice many things at once (all equally nice and distracting).

 

First, he blushes _really_ easily. You already were well aware of that, but you couldn’t help appreciating it again.  
    Secondly, he’d made an excuse for your...departure… from the movie theatre. That was good. You certainly hadn't been able to.  
    Lastly, you quietly wondered if any dumb thing you'd done tonight was wrong in his eyes. You feel the gnats in your stomach still at that thought.

 

He hums a little, unfolding his Subway wrapper and taking a piece from the middle. You can’t help but genuinely smile at him. He notices and his blush deepens. In the back of your mind, you lecture yourself for overthinking this night so much. It was only _technically_ your first date. You’d both already hung out a few times, but he’d wanted to do things ‘properly’.  
You’d been able to hide the worries looming over you before, but maybe they’d just built up too much. You had to be stronger.

 

You tease him a little over how he’s picking out the tomatoes. “Why did you get them, then?” you ask, resting on your hands as your elbows prop you up.  
    “I always forget how they make the bread soggy,” he whines, pinching a droopy tomato. “They’re better on their own anyway,”  
    “Maybe you should order a sub where the tomato is the bread, then,” you joke.“Or grow a tomato plant,”  
    “..! That would be fun! You’re so smart…” suddenly his eyes flickered out. “But I’d probably have better luck taking care of the mold growing on the bread in my pantry,”  
    You snort a little in response. “A _lovely_ houseplant,”  
    “Yeah, heheh. I- I don’t actually have moldy bread though, I lied,”

“Pfft. I think you’d actually be good with tomatoes though. I grew one a couple years ago so I’d be able to help a little, haha,” The words are easy right now and you’re thankful for that. If it goes on like this all night you might make it back home in one piece.

“That would be nice…”

_The universe knows you are not going to be happy with the next results of it’s next coin toss._

 

You finally let your guard down enough to actually look at him. You realize you didn’t need the window after all to look at your lavender sky.  


He stares intensely, in fear of you avoiding his eyes again, maybe. _You haven’t seen him like this._ Like if he looks at you hard enough you’ll stay. You squirm, this is cold water.

But suddenly his eyes soften. He smiles and it’s small and gentle and so him. His eyes flitter down to his sandwich and up again, guiding you back to familiarity.

“I’m so glad I get to see you now. It feels like yesterday we could only talk on the phone and I had to just imagine your smile. It’s a lot nicer in person. And now I want to say dumb things all the time just so I can see it, heh...” _he_ doesn’t blush. (His cheeks live by strange rules. He can say something cheesy like that with a straight face, but spends the rest of his life a tomato!   ~~Another reason he should grow one.~~ )

 

For a second you almost wish you both _were_ on the phone just so he couldn’t see _your_ blushing. Your face feels like an oven so it must be pretty bad.  
    “...I have literally three different types of cheese on this sub, and that was still cheesier than all of them combined,” you tease him, but you know you’re smiling stupidly.

 

“There it is!” he grins and you roll your eyes a little. You place your hand on the table and wait for him to intertwine his fingers with yours.

And the voice that sounds like your mothers repeating all your little wrongs and embarrassments of the night shut up momentarily. And just for now, you let it.

 

You laugh, and cover the sound with another bite of your sandwich.

Your guilt is only going to get worse. Someday your house of white lies and gold will go up in flames and he’ll resent you as much as you do yourself. For now, you may be leaking away, but at least you’re getting lighter. Looking at him aches just as good as it hurts. Sometimes poisonous things work as medicine too, right? If you play your cards right?

  


_..._

 

~~_You’re too selfish to ruin this without enjoying it first._ ~~

**Author's Note:**

> so much smiling, so little happiness.  
> this was probably kinda boring since it was mostly mc inside her own head, but that was intentional and i'll focus more on other characters next !  
> i'm inconsistent so don't expect too much out of this, but i had a lot of Thoughts after yoosung's route so i'm giving it a go  
> yoosung was my first route n i love him a lot, n i rlly want this to be nice so don't hesitate to inform me of typos or weirdly phrased things ♡
> 
> twitter → @auravocado  
> tumblr → @x-pinkskies  
> spotify → @iauraborealis (i have mysmes playlists)


End file.
